


The Yellow House Kids Meet Red Jack

by elestaus



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Secret Samol 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 06:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13207854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elestaus/pseuds/elestaus
Summary: A chance encounter with an urban legend.





	The Yellow House Kids Meet Red Jack

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @steeviesue as part of Secret Samol 2017. The prompt I went with was “red jack being intimidating” + you included the yellow house children in your list of favorite characters and general friendship as one of your preferred ships, which led to this. I hope you like it.
> 
> Also I wish it was easier to have the equivalent of a title card show up part way through a fic.

The Yellow House wasn’t built as a school. Officially, it was an orphanage. What other story could explain a gaggle of directionless youths and destitute urchins gathered together under the supervision of some of the city’s most distinguished figures? Mrs. Manufactory ran a tight ship, everyone agreed, and Mr. Calendar’s generous patronage ensured that the children placed in her care never went hungry.

From the street you’d never guess that respectable, four-story mansion housed a library containing some of the most dangerous texts in Hieron. Bars adorned the windows and the house’s curtains were never drawn. Visitors to the school were few and far between, and those government officials who came to inspect to premises found nothing to suggest that the well-appointed sitting room hosted regular classes in dueling and espionage, alchemy and eschatology.

The school’s teachers were direct with their students; when Lord Samothes decreed that Memoriam College was the only institute of higher learning permitted to exist in the city, it was schools like theirs he intended to suppress. That made their mission all the more important. There were several true believers at the school and the teachers always took special care when attempting to resolve this discrepancy. They couldn’t afford not to.

Run-For-Your-Life lay on his back and stared at the dormitory ceiling. There was too much darkness up there. Back when this was an ordinary house with typical occupants the room where the students slept might have functioned as a library or study instead. Its windows were clearly designed to let as much light in as possible, but as it was barely a sliver of moonlight made it past the heavy velvet draperies. It helped that the lamps of the Yellow House were only ever dimmed, never fully extinguished; a reminder, perhaps, of their school’s sacred purpose.

Run turned over in bed. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the dark – not anymore, at least – but his night vision had only gotten worse with death and the shadows felt oppressive. He hadn’t known if he’d be able to sleep at all as a ghost, since it wasn’t something he appeared to need, but eventually he learned that by staying very still and quiet he could drift into an approximation of unconsciousness.

Sleep wasn’t happening tonight, however.

“You all know the rhyme, right?” Squid whispered from own bed somewhere in the dark nearby. “One, two, he’s coming for you; three, four, bolt the door?”

“Of course we know! Get on with it!” Adi hissed back, impatience masking the slight tremor in her voice.

“Well,” Squid continued, “that’s just the part kids sing for fun. The part their parents say to make 'em behave. Do your chores or Red Jack’ll get you. That kind of thing. Lots of people don’t think he’s real.”

“He’s not,” Adi interjected.

“But my older brother, see,” Squid went on, undeterred, “he knows someone in Quince who actually had one of his little brothers taken.”

“No!” Adi gasped. Then, in a flush of anger at having been frightened, “You’re lying!”

“God’s honest,” Squid assured her with what Run had to assume was a straight face. “You know how he finds you, right? If a kid spills the milk, or won’t eat their greens, or whatever, their parents have to be the ones to call him. They burn a candle, post a letter, say a prayer… I don’t know what they do, but they call him, alright? ‘Come and take this little brat away from us,’ they say, and Red Jack hears it wherever he is.”

Silence fell over the dormitory while Squid waited for the horrible implications of what he'd just said to sink in. When it seemed that no one was about to interrupt him again, he continued.

“Well, this kid must not have been eating his greens, cause his parents did the thing just to frighten him. The whole ritual I mean. I bet they didn't think it would work. And the kid was crying, saying he’d never cause trouble again, but the next day he was gone.”

“He did a runner,” Run said, speaking up for the first time. He hadn’t intended to show that he’d been listening but now it was too late now. “Must have, I mean. Probably crept out in the middle of the night and ran. Can’t say I blame him with parents like that.”

“You haven’t heard the best part yet,” Squid said, evidently pleased with the knowledge that he had Run as part of his audience. “The next day when they went to his room, the window was open, and–”

“I told you,” Run started to say, “he must have climbed out the window and–”

“And in the bed where he’d been sleeping,” Squid continued, raising his voice to compensate for Run’s interruption, “was a fattened pig ready for slaughter. Rules of the exchange, you see. The family fed Red Jack, so he gave them a different kind of meat in return. All part of the ritual.”

There was a muffled wail from Adi’s bed that sounded like it came from under her pillow.

“Anyway it’s all rubbish,” Run said in his normal speaking voice, forgetting that they were supposed to be whispering. “You know that Adi. Red Jack doesn’t exist. He’s a legend from back in the old days when people didn't have enough to feed all their kids, so if times were especially tough sometimes they’d, uh.” Here he stopped to consider what he was about to say next, keenly aware of that fact that Adi was hanging on his every word. “Well never mind what they’d do," he finished, eventually. "The point is no monster took their kids. That’s the important part.”

“And,” Squid added with the air of someone who’d been saving the best for last, “when they checked under his window that morning there were hoof prints in the dirt outside.”

More silence greeted this revelation. Then, in a voice that suggested an instinct for pedantry had helped her to temporarily overcome her fear, Adi spoke up again.

“Red Jack doesn’t have hooves,” she pointed out.

Now it was Squid’s turn to sound impatience. “No, but his horse, Ace–”

“He could have stolen a horse,” Run interrupted again. “Your friend’s brother, I mean, not–”

A low wuffing sound from the hall outside made all three of them jump. There wasn’t enough light to see anything on the other side of the open doorway but Run knew who it had to be.

“Naughty children had better go back to sleep,” came Master Latitude’s voice, light and airy as it floated out of the dark. “That is, unless they want to see a real monster.”

Run wondered how many of the other students were awake and listening as well, but no one in the dormitory dared stir. After what felt like a solid minute of unbroken silence there was another satisfied wuff from the darkened hall followed by the sound of Master Latitude padding invisibly away.

“You don’t have to worry, Adi,” Run said once he was certain the coast was clear. He considered telling her that Red Jack would never come for someone like her, but decided that would be giving too much credence to Squid’s tale. “They taught us about monsters in the Order of Princes,” he said, adopting a worldly air instead. “And they’re out there, believe me, but Red Jack isn’t one of them. He isn’t real.”

Squid’s face wasn’t visible in the dark but Run imagined he could hear the satisfied smirk in his voice.

“Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. I’m just telling you what I heard.”

Adi’s limbs slithered together like a nest of snakes as she burrowed deeper under the covers.

“I hope I never meet him,” she said in a small voice from somewhere underneath.

“You won’t,” said Run.

-

THE YELLOW HOUSE KIDS MEET RED JACK

-

The trees of Marielda’s forest were taller than the tallest buildings in town, though people rarely ventured deep enough to where they risked losing sight of the city behind them. Paths in the forest were few and winding, limited to those relatively safe trails the Order of Eternal Princes had worked to establish. There wasn’t much underbrush, which made the going easier, but the mountainous tangle of roots at ground level meant that anyone leaving the path was facing more of a hike than a stroll.

Left unchecked, the forest had its own version of reconfiguration. One day an unmarked path might offer a direct and easy route to a spring with healing waters and the next it might seek to deliberately confound any attempt at retracing your steps. Perilous ravines might open up unexpectedly, concealed from view as you approached with the apparent coyness of a divine gardener choosing where to dig the trench for a ha-ha. Roots could appear from nowhere to trip you if you tried to run, and then there were the forest’s other inhabitants.

The princes had a rule. Try not to enter the forest alone and never, never go past a certain distance by yourself. If you saw a tree that was too big for your hands to meet when you put your arms around its trunk you were under oath to turn back unless you had a friend with you who could help you join the circle. For larger trees, you brought more friends, and the trees only got bigger the deeper you went.

Run led the way while Squid and Adi trailed behind. The path they had set out to follow would have taken them only a short distance in the direction Run wanted to go before veering off in another, so now they were clambering over a landscape of elevated roots. Weavers were the only ones who seemed fully at home in the forest, and a ghost’s ankles were never at any risk of twisting on the uneven ground, but Run could tell that Squid was struggling to keep up.

Adi seemed oblivious.

“We should bring something to eat next time!” she called out to them both, her carefree demeanor a stark contrast to her terrified quaking from the night before. “Do either of you know someone with a basket we could borrow? I could bake muffins!”

Squid made a sound that might have been one of exertion rather than acknowledgement, but that seemed enough of a confirmation for Adi.

“What’s your favorite kind of muffin, Run?” she asked.

“I don’t eat.”

Adi rolled her eyes theatrically. “Yes but what was your favorite kind of muffin before?” she clarified, placing what Run felt was an undue amount of emphasis on the final word.

“Why?” he said, suppressing a twinge of annoyance. “What do you think I’m going to do with them?”

“Oh, um.” A shadow of doubt passed in front of Adi’s sunny demeanor. “I only thought… Remember when you said you liked the smell outside that one bakery, with the cobbins? I was thinking, even if you couldn’t eat them, if it was a smell you liked…”

Run bit back the first response that came to mind, a cheap shot about how Adi must have thought he wanted a reminder of all the things he couldn’t have. The cruel part was that it wasn’t even true. There weren’t many things he missed about being alive, and Adi was right about the smell being just as good most of the time. He’d forgotten he told her that.

“Blueberry,” he said eventually.

“I know where I can blueberries!” Adi exclaimed happily, all trace worry vanishing from her face. “I know where they grow! Is that alright with you, Squid?”

“Great,” Squid grunted as he struggled to the top of the rise they were standing on. The momentary pause gave him time to wipe the sweat from his brow. Both his sleeves were rolled up, putting the majority of his self-inflicted tattoos on display, and a few strands of bright red hair remained stuck to his forehead even after he’d brushed the rest of his fringe back from his face.

“You gonna tell us where we’re going now?” he asked.

Run removed his glasses and buffed the lenses on his shirt before replacing them. It was an old habit from life. The glasses and shirt were as much a part of him now as his carefully combed hair, only the glasses never needed cleaning and his hair was always in place. It didn’t seem possible for him to lose the glasses either, even if one of the lenses was now permanently cracked from his fall. Just a few of the advantages of being a ghost.

“I told you already,” he said. “It’s the place I wanted to show you before.”

Squid didn’t respond, but Run tell from his expression that things were starting to line up for him.

Oh. That place.

“What are you two talking about?” Adi asked, clearly annoyed at being left out of the loop.

“We were talking about having some kind of hideout.” Squid answered, a little too quickly. “You were there for that part, remember? Some place no one else knew about. I thought maybe somewhere up in the rigging on Canopy Row, but Run thought–”

“The forest,” Run finished for him. “There’s an old campsite the princes used to use. It's not much further now. The trees don’t grow there and there’s a circle of stones around the outside that bad things can’t cross.”

“Why?” Adi wanted to know.

Run shrugged. “Beats me. I don’t think anyone ever figured it out.”

The three of them started walking again with Adi in the lead this time, now that she knew the direction they were headed. Run could tell Squid had something he wanted to say and had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to talk about but didn’t know what form the question was going to take.

“Do you know where it happened?” Squid asked eventually, careful to speak quietly so that Adi wouldn’t overhear.

Ah.

“Yes,” Run answered.

“Is it close?”

“Must be, since I was on my way here.”

“Is it–” Squid started, then stopped to wet his lips before continuing. “Do you know if your body’s still…”

Run held up a hand for silence. It was clear from the way Adi had frozen in place that she’d heard it too; somewhere close by, someone was singing. Badly.

Acting on unspoken agreement, the three of them crept to the top of the nearest rise to peer over the edge. Below them lay the campsite Run had come to find. It looked just as he remembered, a clear space among the trees where even the twisting roots had failed to spread. Enough sunlight filtered through the canopy above for a few small bushes to grow. There was the circle of pale stones arranged around the edge of the clearing, the barrier that no evil thing was supposed to be able to cross, and there, in the middle of everything…

Adi stifled a gasp.

There, seated by a campfire in the middle of the clearing, was a broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, and incidentally shirtless figure. Run guessed that it must have been over seven feet tall when standing. Its skin was dark red and a pair of curved horns sprouted from the top of its head amid a tangle of wild black hair. Light from the flickering campfire illuminated a bearded, improbably handsome face as the ogre leaned forward to warm its hands over the flames.

There was no mistaking who it was: Red Jack, exactly as he appeared in all the picture books.

Run barely took in the rest of the scene. There was a rudimentary tent, little more than a sheet suspended between wooden poles, a large grey horse tied up and nosing at the dirt nearby, a pile of newly cut firewood, and a scattering of personal effects.

Red Jack sang as he stoked the fire. The words sounded like nonsense and his voice lacked any of the desirable qualities Lady Accountability would have looked for during a music lesson back at the House, but the singer carried on with the confidence of someone who knew their intended audience – a horse in this case – wasn’t likely to complain.

Run seethed as he listened. Monster. Thief of children. He had no right to be here. He shouldn’t even be real. This place was supposed to be theirs.

Adi looked between him and Squid.

“What do we do?” she whispered.

“Run, probably,” Squid said, and laughed. The look on his face suggested he was having trouble believing the evidence of his eyes.

Run stood up in full view of the campsite below.

“The fuck are you doing?” Squid whispered in sudden alarm.

“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything in the forest,” Run shot back at him. “Go ahead and run if you want. I’ll catch up with you later. Isn’t that what you told me before?”

Run didn’t wait long enough for squid to respond before starting down the other side of the rise that separated them from the camp. Whatever feeble counterarguments fear and common sense could muster were powerless in the face of his rage. He didn't have a heart that was capable of beating any longer but he fancied he could hear the pound of blood in his ears.

Red Jack didn’t look up or seem to notice him as he stepped over the circle of stones at the edge of the clearing. A moment later Run heard the slither of Adi’s limbs sliding over the dirt and felt something tug at his sleeve; he could tell she'd only dared to come about halfway down slope, but that was far enough for someone with arms as long as hers.

“Please, Run,” Adi begged, “We have to–”

“Oho!” boomed Red Jack. He’d straightened up on spotting them and gotten to his feet. Now that he was standing, Run could see that he must have lowballed his earlier height estimate. “A ghost and a switchling. Tell me, where–”

A flung rock bounced off one of Red Jack’s horns before he could finish the sentence. The horse on the other side of the clearing whinnied and shied at Red Jack’s yelp of surprise.

“Hey asshole!” Squid yelled from where Run had left him at the top of the rise, only now he was standing out in full view of the camp as well. His posture was relaxed, but he another rock in hand and seemed ready to throw. “I’m giving you a warning, alright? Back. Off.”

Adi shrank back at that, sliding quickly back over the ground in her haste to rejoin squid, but Run stood his ground.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he declared, facing Red Jack, “and you’re trespassing.”

“What?” Red Jack shifted his attention between Run and Squid as if he couldn’t decide who to focus on. He kept one hand on the place where the rock struck him, but seemed more confused than hurt or annoyed.

“This campsite is maintained by the Order of Eternal Princes,” Run snapped. “Civilians need special permission to use it.”

Red Jack threw back his head and laughed. Run half expected another stone to come flying in and almost wished it would, no matter the provocation it caused, but Squid restrained himself for now.

“Beg pardon, Master Prince,” Red Jack said once he’d finished wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “I should have known from your badge. Not to worry though. I’ll be on my way just as soon as I can find the path out of these woods. You wouldn’t happen to know the way to Marielda, would you?”

“Don’t tell him!” Adi hissed from the edge of the clearing. As if he would.

“Why?” Run demanded. “So you can steal kids in the city?”

Red Jack sighed and sat back down on his seat by the fire. “This again. Stories are my bread and meat,” he said, “but if there’s one type of story I dislike… No, nothing like that. I’m what you’d call a traveling publican.”

Run looked around the campsite. Now that he had time to look there did seem to be an unusual number of bottles among his other belongings. Red Jack reached over to pat the side of a massive clay jug with a cork that was larger than Run’s fist.

“Orcish whiskey. And this,” he said, leaning back on his seat to retrieve a bottle, “is wharver rum. You’ll never guess what I had to do to get this. I’ve got a contact in Chrysanthemum who’ll set me up with a regular supply while I’m in town but always I try and bring a few bottles of the good stuff with me when I’m on the road.”

“Does that mean you’ve been here before?” Run asked.

“Told you, didn’t I?” Squid called. “Had to be here to take Matthew’s brother, didn't he? Bet you thought I was making all that up.”

Red Jack nodded towards Squid. “If he wants proof, maybe your stone-throwing friend would like to join us.”

Run glanced back at Squid and shrugged. Squid, for his part, made an exaggerated show of his rolling his shoulders to ease the tension in them before starting down the slope towards the camp. At no point did he let go of the stone.

“What are you two doing?” Adi wailed from a safe distance away.

Squid stopped on the other side of the fire and smirked at Run in a way that said 'bet you thought I was scared, didn’t you?' Red Jack held out the bottle of for him to take, which he did.

Run watched him pull the cork out with his teeth, spit it into the fire, and drink deep without waiting for a reaction. Red Jack watched as well, and they both saw Squid suppress a cough on lowing the bottle.

“Well?” Run asked.

“S’alright,” Squid managed, before actually coughing.

Red Jack retrieved the bottle from him and took an even longer swig for himself before turning to Run.

“I know your kind don’t drink like living folks,” he said, “but I think I’ve got something for you here. There’s a special kind of cider the make up in Tristero’s neck of the woods. Ghost apples, I’m told.”

“Strong drink is a mocker,” Run said, quoting from memory, “and ill-befits the dignity of a prince.”

“Suit yourself.” Red Jack looked to where Adi had pressed herself down among the roots at the edge of the camp in an attempt to escape notice. “You wear the symbol of Samothes,” he said, causing Adi’s hand to fly to the golden sun pendant that hung around her neck as if afraid Red Jack might try and snatch it from the other side of the clearing.

“How’s he doing?” Red Jack asked. “It feels like it must have been an age and a half since I saw him.”

“Our Lord Samothes?” Adi squeaked in a voice that carried disbelief in every syllable.

“He’s a good friend. Couldn’t ask for better. I might wish he’d respond to letters once in a while but I expect running a city takes it out of you. Do me a favor and let him know Red Jack’s in town the next time you see him. The man’s got a volcano palace; the least he can do is have guests over once in a while.”

Red Jack looked around at them hopefully in the stunned silence that followed.

“So, the path?”

Run gestured back in the direction they had come form. “It’s that way. You don’t have far to go.”

“Then I owe you a debt,” Red Jack beamed as he got to his feet. “It usually takes me a day or two to get settled, but look me up if you’re ever in Red House. All of you. They haven’t passed any laws about painting on walls, have they? That’s how most people find me. Look lively, Ace! We’re moving!”

In a matter of minutes, Red Jack had doused the campfire, torn down the makeshift tent, packed up his belongings and had everything ready for transport on the horse's back while the assorted bottles and jugs hung suspended in a complex web of knotted cords that allowed for a minimum of clinking. At no point did the animal’s behavior suggest any part of this arrangement was at all burdensome or strange. Run, Squid, and Adi watched as Red Jack lead the horse away, and then with a final wave he was gone.

“I meant to ask if he really eats people,” Run said after the two of them had vanished.

Squid kicked at the remains of the fire. “If it makes a difference, that story I told you was total bullshit.”

Adi had picked herself up off the ground and stood beside them again. “Do you think we should tell someone when we get back?” she asked.

“Who’d we want to tell?” Squid scoffed. “Besides. He seemed alright.”

Run tried to shake himself out of his daze.

“Muffins next time?” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Adi nodded with renewed confidence. “Muffins.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twitter @elestaus


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